“TURMOIL HIDING BEHIND MY EYES…”

BIPOLAR DISORDER. It is defined as “a condition in which a person has periods of depression and periods of being extremely happy or being cross or irritable”.

A very dear friend of mine suffers with this disorder, along with 3 of her 5 sisters. Both her parents suffered from this horrible (can I call it “disease”?). I have watched her over many years have her ups and downs, her ins and outs. I have witnessed the chaotic scenes, the “too” happy moments and then the major crashes. Hospital rooms with padded walls have been her residence at times. Suicidal thoughts have invaded her mind and taken up space where there once was BRILLIANCE. Her light is dim most of the time now, and when it’s not, we cherish the moments and we cram a lifetime before it goes dim again. She doesn’t like taking her meds because as she puts it, “it makes her feel strange”. So, it’s kind of like battling the devil you do know as opposed to battling the one you don’t.

While perusing Twitter today, I came across a young lady (whom I will not name), who was speaking about her battle with this disorder. I didn’t read all of her thread but I felt compelled to “tweet” her and let her know of my friend and this poem that I had penned for her a couple of years ago. I told her that if it was ok, I would share it with her later. But instead of doing that on Twitter, where your word space is very limited, I thought I’d blog it. That way the world would be able to see it, to feel it, and to possibly gain MORE insight as to how it feels to be tagged as BIPOLAR.

“TURMOIL BEHIND MY EYES”

There’s this illness invading my body. It controls my every move. It drowns out my every thought. It lives in every groove.

It runs through my head constantly. Stealing bits and pieces of my mind. It makes me feel I’m crazy. Sometimes I feel I’m out of time.

I need it to go away. It makes me see things that just aren’t there. It takes its toll on my family. They think I’m acting out, they think I don’t care.

I’m scared of my own thoughts. I try to keep them intact. I fight the urge to scream. But I feel I’m under attack.

People look at me and frown. They just don’t understand my pain. They don’t know what it feels like, to be left crying in the rain.

When you’re immobilized by fear, that has a strong hold on your heart, you open your mouth to tell them, but then you don’t know where to start.

They look at me with pity in their eyes, and to myself I scream “I just want to die!”

Take it out of my head, please take it away. I don’t want to live with it, not another day.

I want to be whole, not lie dormant like a mole, waiting for the sun to rise.

There’s something controlling my body, and you all may think I’m a freak. But that something has a hold on me, and that something makes me weak.

If you were born a WHOLE person, with no disease inside. Then you will never truly understand the turmoil, that hides behind my eyes. – Nonnie Jules

If this helps one person who’s living with this illness OR If this helps one person to better understand it, then I have done a good job here. My friend told me how it all felt to her at times, and I put it all into words. I must admit, that there have been times when I felt that I couldn’t deal with my friend while she was going thru and so I asked GOD to give me the patience and the understanding to continue being around her. Someone then told me that GOD doesn’t give us patience, he gives us OPPORTUNITIES TO BE patient. I am working on these many opportunities that GOD has placed before me. I hope to continue to grow in my understanding of this disorder and I welcome and encourage any and all of you to take this journey with me.

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3 Comments

Nice piece. I’m a licensed counselor and teach graduate counseling students for Spring Arbor University. I’m teaching Psychopathology right now. Bipolar can be terrible, chilling, alienating, and tragic. Let me know if I can help you as you struggle to understand bipolar disorder.